Shea is a Senior Associate in the King & Wood Mallesons Employee Relations & Safety team, experienced in all aspects of employment and workplace relations law. His practice spans a broad set of institutional clients across sectors including financial services, mining, energy and resources, retail, manufacturing, construction and civil contracting, logistics, emergency services, government, technology and gig-economy.
Specialising in strategic industrial relations and disputes, Shea regularly works with employers on their most complex workforce management and labour relations challenges. An experienced litigator, he also advises and acts for clients in proceedings in the Fair Work Commission and Federal Courts.
Shea also works closely with clients to assist them in complying with Australia’s complex labour relations and regulatory framework, including wide-scale payroll review projects and subsequent engagements with various regulators.
Having been seconded in-house for a major retailer, Shea draws on his understanding of the client perspective to deliver practical and commercially focused advice.
Shea has also spent time working in private practice in London, where he advised on significant global transactions and restructuring projects, sensitive executive employment terminations and executive contracts and incentive schemes.
Shea’s experience includes:
- Industrial relations strategies for significant capital projects, including engagement models, transition arrangements and management of industrial action risk
- Enterprise agreement strategy, including bargaining, agreement drafting, responding to good faith bargaining orders and assisting with Fair Work Commission approval processes
- Managing employee engagement and termination issues, including claims regarding redundancy, unfair dismissal, adverse action, restraints and executive termination benefit restrictions
- Advising on the operational and commercial implications of various rounds of industrial relations legislative reforms, including the available options to prepare for and mitigate risk
- Planning for and responding to protected and unprotected industrial action in several sectors, including seeking urgent relief in both Fair Work Commission and Federal Court proceedings
- Advising on various labour models including independent contracting arrangements, gig-economy contracts and labour-hire licensing and requirements
- Acting for an employer association (on behalf of the industry) in Fair Work Commission proceedings to vary the relevant modern award to achieve key industry objectives
- Advising on corporate transactions and restructures, including all manner of employee-related implications such as transfers of employees, re-contracting, treatment of historical liabilities and associated Fair Work Commission applications to stop the transfer of industrial instruments
- Sensitive investigations involving senior executives and acting in litigation in relation to employment and discrimination related claims in the Federal Courts.
Shea has been named as an ‘Employment & WHS Law Rising Star – Victoria’ by Doyle’s Guide.
